Marvel Feature Presents: Red Sonja #4 (Marvel Comics, 1975)

After barely escaping the giant mechanical monstrocity in Marvel Feature Presents Red Sonja #3, Sonja is thirsty for a flagon of ale! She rides her horse into a strange town and enters the tavern only to find the customers turned into solid stone. While pondering the situation, she is attacked from behind by a bandit calling her names like "Hell-Spawn" and "Demoness!" Sonja reluctantly strikes down the strange lunatic, but then encounters another who drives her outside into a mob of townspeople with torches and pitchforks, calling for her death.

Sonja is forced to fight but finds herself outnumbered and quickly overrun. The mob subdues her, ties a rope around her neck, and hangs her on a tree outside of town while calling her a witch.

While Sonja sways in the breeze, the mob returns to town and discovers more townpeople turned to stone. They decide that they hung the wrong woman and return, only to find her missing and being carried off by the village idiot.

Sonja awakes in a cave covered in rats while a strange man stands nearby. His name is Unkas, and he tells Sonja of the gorgon who turns the villagers to stone when people look at her. Unkas offers her a horse to ride away, but instead she rides back into town to investigate. What she discovers is a scene of horror as townspeople circle a woman burning on a stake, chanting "gorgon, gorgon!"

Filled with rage, Sonja leaps into the scene to save the girl, hacking and slashing her way through townspeople. Everyone runs away, and she turns and looks upon the gorgon, who looks like Medusa from the Clash of the Titans movie. Sonja feels her body stiffen, and she turns to stone!

When Sonja wakes up, again, she finds herself back in a cave with Unkas, who shows her a prison cell filled with villagers. He then shows her the gorgon mask, and the strange woman who acts as the gorgon is none other than his sister, who emerges from the shadows. She explains how the villagers stoned her parents to death for giving birth to her brother, Unkas, and she seeks revenge.

Sonja decides that this is too much and attacks. She throws his sister at Unkas, which sends the rats into a feeding frenzy to eat her. Unkas, who takes Sonja's sword, turns out to be a powerful foe and wounds her. Desperate to survive, Sonja uses a crazed rat to maul his face. Wounded, bleeding, and crawling, Sonja wins the battle by dumping a boiling pot of liquid rock on top of him.

She stumbles away, never having enjoyed that flagon of ale.